This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
A shoe sorter is a type of sorter conveying system composed of a conveyor which moves in a conveying direction along a conveying route. Mounted on the conveyor are pusher shoes which are movable relative to the conveyor in a direction transversely relative to the conveying direction. Each shoe is coupled to a guide pin or wheel which can engage a guide track mounted beneath the conveying surface for determining the lateral position of the shoe relative to the conveyor surface. The rail arrangement includes diverters which can divert the travel direction of the guide pin or wheel from the conveying direction to a direction oriented transversely relative to the conveying direction. In that fashion, the shoes can push items transversely from the conveyor and onto a chute at appropriate destination sites along the conveying route. Examples of such sorters include U.S. Pat. No. 4,738,347 issued to Brouwer et al on Apr. 19, 1988, U.S. Pat. No. 5,333,715 issued to Sapp on Aug. 2, 1994, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,613,591 issued to Heit et al. on Mar. 25, 1997.
It can occur, however, that backups of objects on the chutes can occur. When that happens, it is possible that the shoes will push subsequent objects toward a blocked chute that does not admit entry of those objects. Accordingly, the shoes may be subjected to considerable undesirable (e.g., above a predetermined acceptable level) external forces that can damage the shoes, the conveyor, and/or the objects being conveyed. Each shoe can be attached by a connector element which fails or breaks in response to the application of the external forces to allow the shoe to detach from its drive pin (e.g., see the connector elements 28, 228, and 260 disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,628,265 issued to Verploegen et al. on Dec. 8, 2009; and the connector element 14 disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,198,145 issued to Brown et al. on Apr. 3, 2007). When that occurs, reattaching the shoe requires that the failed or broken part be replaced and/or the use of tools. Reattachment can also require special knowledge and skills to perform the operation correctly. Such replacement processes can be complicated by the need to obtain replacement parts, tools, etc., which can be time consuming; possibly resulting in appreciable down-time of the sorting conveyor.